Ben “Chong94″ LeFew
Biography:
I was born in Harvard, Illinois, and am currently 22 years old. I am currently enrolled in my 5th year
at the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign, majoring in political science.
Poker Story:
I have played poker for as long as I can remember. I come from a very competitive and gambling oriented family. At the age of 10 my grandfather took me to full ring games of 5 card stud, 7 card stud, and 5 card draw. One day, at the ripe age of 11 i told my father that I thought I might be good enough to be a professional cardplayer. He called my grandfather and explained to him the situation, at which time my grandfather played me heads up and took my whole roll - every penny. Humility is a great lesson to learn early on, but regardless I kept on playing.I did my best to derive a positive expected value from other games, such as bullshit, between the sheets, guts etc.
I was able to make a reasonable sum of money dealing blackjack on occasion, but mostly playing cards throughout my highschool career. My senior year of highschool i was introduced to texas holdem. The first multi-table tournament i played i made the final table, but was not awarded my due prize money, due to the fact that, although i had the same straight as my opponent, the derilect tourney director said he had me “outkicked”. This is how bad players used to be. After that began to read extensively. Every book on poker that i could ever find, i read, sometimes 3 or 4 times. I deposited online and began playing limit on Ultimate Bet almost 5 years ago. When I arrived at UofI i continued playing, making just enough to feed me every week. Then I met the Toilet. Although the Toilet had only been playing for a very short time, his instincts were unrivaled. I had never seen someone with such a natural talent for the game. More importantly, he had a characteristic I had lacked entirely - Ambition. At the time I had been given the nickname “stats”, because i had a terrible habit of rattling off odds and statistics at the table. I relayed all of the statistical knowledge I had to Toilet, as well as tells and he excelled quickly.
Soon both of us were traveling to vegas, and playing cards nearly full time. Together we rented a house at UofI, and continued playing while simultaneously teaching other pokerhaus members. Soon, people started calling us the pokerhaus, mainly because of the nl cash games we ran every night, and its now infamous occupants. Andy “BKice” Seth came to the haus as many wannabe pros do. He asked for book recommendations, and as I had to many people before, I lent him a few books. Over the next few days I had forgotten about him completely, in fact I would have given it even money that i’d even get my books back, but to my surprise not only did he return them promptly, but he had actually absorbed almost all of the information. He could already talk about the game at a level that it took some years to accomplish. His dazzling intellect, discipline, and ambition combined to make a great player. He also brought a renewed interest in learning new techniques, and the “online crowd”. Admittedly I had become increasingly lazy in my poker education, but thanks to Andy my interest had become renewed.
It is the objective of every good teacher to have their student surpass them in understanding. To this day, I have surely learned as much from andy and faraz as they ever have from me.
